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Ketil Fred Hansen

Hansen is a professor of social sciences at UiS and a regular reviewer at Ny Tid.

Russia's Africa policy

AFRICA: Russia has been very keen on the principle of non-interference and has allowed authoritarian regimes to pursue their own policies without making any political demands for their trade or aid. But they gave debt relief to a number of African countries at the same time as signing several military-technical agreements.

Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad

AFRICA: In Norway, interest in the Sahel is growing: With the fall of Gaddafi in 2011, both the strength and the number of rebel groups in the Sahel increased. After the start of the global war on terror in 2001, more and more countries have taken an interest in this large area. But aren't the Islamists fighting here primarily against the West?

Muslim elites, exercise of power and terror

AFRICA: What can a book say about Boko Haram or the porous border between today's Cameroon and today's Chad? Or about the pre-colonial kingdom of Kanem-Bornu?

Politically correct decolonization ideology?

MODERNIZATION: The Nigerian professor Olùfèmi Táíwò looks at power relations between the formerly colonized and colonialists. All states strive to adapt modern institutions to their own history, cultural context and ideological climate. But can the demand to decolonize the language become absurd?

Which African intellectuals…

Intellectuals: Inspired both by Bakhtin and Foucault, Stephen Chan presents Achille Mbembe's analyzes of the African state in an understandable way. But let's mention what the book leaves out.

«… Who steals, rapes, plunders, tortures and kills»

FRANCE: The French presidential candidate Eric Zemmour's conclusion after a number of "not a day without" statements is that France is about to be taken over by Muslims and feminists. The whole Zemmour figure is incomprehensible.

She could be Italy's next prime minister

ITALY: "I'm a woman, I'm a Christian, I'm a mother, I'm Italian, I'm on the right, I'm Giorgia." A book devoid of political analysis?

French warriors and Norwegian soldiers in the Sahel

THEY HAD: No one in the Norwegian government can have read Nathaniel Powell's new book France's War in Chad: Military Intervention and Decolonization in Africa. Had they done so, they would never have sent Norwegian soldiers to the French military force Takuba in Mali.

Political propaganda, role mixing and politicians – Mussolini, Franco, Hitler, Pinochet, Gaddafi, Erdogan….

DICTATORS: It is your network of contacts that shows who you are and that gives you a job.